Synopsis: This holiday season, enter a colorful, wondrous world populated by hilariously unforgettable characters and discover the story of the overly optimistic Trolls, with a constant song on their lips, and the comically pessimistic Bergens, who are only happy when they have trolls in their stomach.

Release Date: November 4, 2016

Thoughts: If you’ve yet to watch the trailer for Trolls, the new animated film from Dreamworks, you should probably put on a pair of sunglasses. Not only is the color palette so vibrant it practically vibrates but the overall cheer of the piece is as sunny as a day in May. Already making a splash with a catchy music video from Justin Timberlake, Trolls takes those whispy haired wonders from being mere lucky Bingo idols to the big screen in an original musical adventure. It looks like quite the trip and with voices from Timberlake (Inside Llewyn Davis), Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect 2), James Corden (Into the Woods), Gwen Stefani, and more all signs point to a zany treat come November.

Synopsis: When Hiccup and Toothless discover an ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider, the two friends find themselves at the center of a battle to protect the peace.

Review: While How to Train Your Dragon reached massive audiences in 2010, it failed to reach me until a few months into its run when I caught it on a double bill at an IMAX theater. To get to the film I wanted to see (Hubble 3D) I had to see the animated adventures of a Viking lad making friends with a dragon, the sworn enemy of his people. Hardly looking forward to it, I ended up being dazzled at what the folks at DreamWorks Animation had dreamed up and impressed that they had strong material (a series of books written by Cressida Cowell) as a jumping off point.

I failed to re-watch the original before going into the second film so it took me a while to re-assimilate myself with the characters. This was made more difficult because everyone has grown up a lot in the three years since we last saw Hiccup, his dragon Toothless, and the rough and tumble friends, family, and other breeds of dragon that now comfortably share their beautifully rendered coastal village.

Wasting hardly a second in its running length, we’re soon trailing Hiccup and Toothless as they avoid capture by a band of roving dragon pirates and discover a new world of dragons living in a crystalline ice cave guarded by a mysterious figure known as the Dragon Rider. Keeping this review as spoiler free as possible, I’ll only say that the voice of the Dragon Rider is provided by a recent Oscar winner smelling of blue jasmine. When a sinister foe appears and threatens to destroy the peaceful harmony Hiccup and his kin have formed with the dragons, it’s all hands on deck for a dramatic showdown that will change everything moving forward.

Though rated PG, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is, like the recently released Maleficent, ever so slightly too scary for young children. Some events transpire that parents may not feel ready to discuss with their children yet but I applaud the filmmakers for handing some delicate moments with sensitivity that doesn’t feel like hand-holding. Surprisingly, I found myself choking up a bit through several passages in the film that masterfully tug at your heartstrings.

While the computer animation and 3D effects are the dependably stunning work that DreamWorks is known for, the voices assembled are a bit of a hodge podge. Eternally squeaky sounding Jay Baruchel (This is the End) doesn’t feel quite right for the role…his character has grown in stature but obviously is in his third year of puberty. Striking a similar dissonant chord is America Ferrera (End of Watch) whose rich tone feels too old for her spunky heroine. Though the rest barely can be classified as cameos, it was nice to hear the new and returning ensemble talents of Gerard Butler (Olympus Has Fallen), Kit Harington (Pompeii), Djimon Honsou(Guardians of the Galaxy), Craig Ferguson(Brave), Jonah Hill(Django Unchained), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Kick-Ass 2), and Kristen Wiig (Girl Most Likely)

What makes How to Train Your Dragon 2 such a success, ultimately, is a maturity not often found in a “family film”. Yes, it’s stunning in its style and lavish in its spectacle but it has a strong heart beating under its dragon armor that it embraces fully. I don’t imagine this will be the last of the series so I’m hoping that further adventures will be handled with the same care.

Synopsis: The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows.

Review: Like I said in my review of the red-band trailer for Kick-Ass 2, I wasn’t a huge fan of the 2010 original which had a premise (everyday kid turns crime fighter with less than spectacular results) that was exploited ad nauseam and was much longer than it needed to be. While I enjoyed that when the good guys got a beat down they actually bled and that some had vocabularies that would make a sailor blush, the original film just felt played out before the first reel was done.

So a sequel was not high on my wish list in the grand scheme of things. Ah, but when you have a film that does surprisingly well at the box-office that didn’t cost a lot to make, movie studio execs quickly get those crazy dollar signs instead of pupils and before you know it three years later I found myself taking in a decent if totally unnecessary second chapter in the story of Kick-Ass and his rough and tumble compatriots.

In the years since the first film, two of the three leading actors have turned in some interesting work. While Dark Shadows wasn’t the hit Chloë Grace Moretz thought she signed up for, her character had a wacky arc that the actress went to the mat with. Even more surprising, Aaron Taylor-Johnson got the Oliver Stone treatment in Savages before buttoning-up nicely for Anna Karenina last fall. It was refreshing to see that both actors easily slid back into their roles and try though they might to get something cooking with the development laid out by writer/director Jeff Wadlow, there’s only so much you can do with very few ingredients.

The worst thing about the movie is not the crazy violence (violence so outlandish that star Jim Carrey, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, refused to promote it…after cashing his sizable paycheck, natch) or the funny-in-a-sad-way performance of Christopher Mintz-Plasse (The To Do List…and what’s with the three name names of our leads?) but that it’s not very well made. This had to have had a larger budget than the original…so why does everything from the sets to the costumes to the special effects look so flimsy and cheap? There’s a chase scene on top of a van that, while impressively choreographed, appears to be filmed via time travel to 1985.

Another sticking point was that the movie keeps our two leading players apart for so much of the movie. While Moretz is off working a Mean Girls meets Carrie subplot (bad-timing, because Moretz is starring in October’s Carrie remake), Taylor-Johnson is making new friends in Carrey, Donald Faison, and Lindy Booth as upstart civilian superheroes. When Moretz and Taylor-Johnson are together the movie finds a pleasantly comic groove but these moments come too little, too late.

All said, Kick-Ass 2 is no gem and not a film worthy of your dog days of summer time or effort. If you’re a fan of the original, this can wait until you can rent it…all others are advised to pick something else. (Check my archive if you want a few suggestions!).

Review: Fret not, all of you out there that have lamented the death of the 80’s screwball sex farce for a picture is coming that should get you all misty for a cinematic time long since passed. In the grand tradition of films like Joysticks, Hardbodies, The Last American Virgin and the more ribald sequels to American Pie, The To Do List is a decidedly slight coming of age story chock full of crude humor and kooky performances. Like those earlier films, though, there are some troubles to be had as the one joke set-up reaches its climax long before our leading lady does.

In an interesting bit of genre gender bending, The To Do List exchanges a nerdy, awkward virginal male for a nerdy, awkward, virginal female that has spent her high school hot lunch days with her nose in books rather than the crotches of her classmates. After graduating and before heading to Stanford, Brandy (Aubrey Plaza, Safety Not Guaranteed, Monsters University) has a summer job to look forward to and watching Beaches with her friends (Alia Shawkat, Sarah Steele).

This being a sex comedy, of course the film has to take place in the past (1993 never looked so perfectly embarrassing), Brandy’s job is at a struggling summer pool that operates in the shadow of a larger country club and her two friends are stock character non-virgins more than happy to educate our naïve star on what she has to look forward to in college. Taking advice from her foul mouthed sister (Rachel Bilson), Brandy makes up a list of all the sins of the flesh that she wants to commit before September rolls around. This “To Do List” is filled with a variety of popular terms out of the urban dictionary that aren’t fit to print in a review my mom will probably read. As Brandy goes through her list – ‘Wow…there are a lot of ‘jobs’ here” – the audience laughs along with the knowing nostalgia of where we were the first time we found out what a ‘shocker’ actually was.

As Brandy makes her way through the list and through several boys at her work (including a perfectly pitched performance by Johnny Simmons as an ardent devotee of Brandy) her end goal is to lose her V-Card to studly lifeguard Rusty Waters (Scott Porter), a bleach blonde 90’s stud that “feels like Marky Mark looks”. Some nice turns from Porter and Bill Hader as the washed out manager of the pool do land where they need to but poor Connie Britton and Clark Gregg (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Marvel’s The Avengers) are underused as Brandy’s parental units…an understanding mom and uptight dad. Britton and Gregg are talented enough to make their shoehorned in roles appealing but are ultimately stymied by an underwritten script.

Reportedly inspired by writer/director Maggie Carey (Hader’s wife) and her experiences before college, the movie is really just a series of the same punch lines over and over again. That works for a while but with a film that nearly reaches 105 minutes the laughs don’t come as often as they should and the lessons that will be learned are clear before the first reel is over

Though the dialogue is incredibly (and almost laughably) crude and there’s an abundance of bodily emissions that end up in the mouth of Plaza the film is surprisingly chaste. The one thing that the 80’s film has on this entry is stars not quite famous enough to feel self-conscious about showing a little skin. Even in the throes of passion everyone is covered up in the film but I’m not saying if the film had nudity it would have been more successful…just more in line with the old-school feel the more is obviously already going for.

For fans of these retro sex comedies, you’ll probably get more than a few laughs out of The To Do List but it’s a film that will probably play better on the small screen rather than in a cavernous theater where the laughs die quickly. Though well acted by a more than game cast in an obviously low-budget production, the movie can only manage to get up to second base before losing stamina.

Review: The Red-Band trailer for This Is The End was tough to get through – don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with crude language or content but I always appreciate something of substance to back it up with and I wasn’t sure that the rest of This Is The End would be able to support the foul-mouthed tangents that would surely come with the film. So I was pretty apprehensive going into a screening of the new film from Evan Goldberg and star Seth Rogen because I didn’t want to be the only one not laughing for two hours.

Turns out, I laughed a lot in the film though a day later I feel kinda bad about it. Playing like the longest Funny or Die Video ever, This Is The End has moments of comedic glory that are pinned between vile nonsensical tangents (a two minute discussion over who defaced James Franco’s Penthouse Magazine goes on precisely one minute and fifty-eight seconds too long), questionable special effects, and an entire set-up that flames out long before the credits roll.

The first twenty minutes of the film are so very meta with Seth Rogen picking up visiting friend Jay Baruchel at the airport ready for a weekend together. Seth brings Jay over to James Franco’s housewarming party where they meet Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and a host of other famous faces from the same circle these actors travel in (if you’re a fan of Freaks and Geeks you’ll be in heaven). Everyone is playing themselves (or a movie version of themselves) and there’s some laughs to be had from seeing how certain actors behave when they aren’t in front of the camera. Warning: fans of Michael Cera better brace themselves for a few visuals they won’t be able to un-see. Another warning: if 90’s boy bands give you hives you’d better taken your allergy medicine because there’s a great cameo at the end that was pretty hysterical.

After those first twenty minutes, an apocalypse happens…literally. Now, holed up in James Franco’s fortress of a house, Rogen, Baruchel, Robinson, Hill, and Danny McBride must band/bond together to face the end of days together. Along the way they get a visit from Emma Watson (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), perform an exorcism on Hill, and wax poetic about everything from Milky Way’s to the trust between friends.

There’s a lot of big ideas and interesting moments in the film but it’s all covered with a frat-boy slime that starts to wear thin pretty fast. Fans of the actors will find a lot to like here and any/all weed jokes are covered – including a home movie filmed sequel to Pineapple Express that for some may be worth the price of admission.

Still, there’s something to be said for a little bit of restraint and I couldn’t get over the notion that this would have been a lot funnier if it were a viral video making the rounds (not surprising this was based on a short viral video…go figure!) rather than a full length feature that can’t quite make it over the finish line. That may all sound like I’m being a big ‘ole fuddy-duddy and I probably am. Like I said, I guffawed with the best of them and found a lot of the more offensive material to be laughably over-the-top. With The Hangover Part III releasing in May, June’s This Is The End may be exactly what Dr. Feelgood ordered for moviegoers that need some extra party time this summer.

Synopsis: The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows.

Release Date: August 16, 2013

Thoughts: OK…I’m going to come clean about something…are you ready? I didn’t really like the first Kick-Ass when it was released in 2010. There, I said it and I hope we can still be friends.

While I appreciated the anti-superhero movie for what it was trying to accomplish I felt it wound up just being an excuse for tiny tyke Chloë Grace Moretz (Dark Shadows, Carrie) to spew profanity while our titular hero got the bloody crap kicked out of him. It was overlong and overstuffed, resulting in a film I just couldn’t warm to. With the nice take at the box office, a sequel was a foregone conclusion so this summer Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl are back and this time they’re up against old comrade Red Mist. With a new director and screenwriter on board we’ll have to see if the sequel can make a better impression on me than the original.

Thoughts: Here’s a film I’ve been hearing about for a while now thanks to a word of mouth publicity campaign. Though it reminds me a lot of the uneven semi-classic Kentucky Fried Movie, this particular entry sold me on the cast list alone. You have Oscar nominated/winning females (Naomi Watts, Uma Thurman, Kate Winslet, Halle Berry) side by side with men that run the gamut from A-List (Hugh Jackman, Richard Gere) to has beens (sorry fellow MN Seann William Scott). Many famous faces/names also wrote and directed the shorts so here’s hoping that the good stuff is great and the bad stuff is short. I’ve laughed at this trailer (and its Not Safe For Work red band trailer here) and do anticipate liking this when it’s released later in January.

What is it about dark subject matter that lends itself so well to the art of stop-motion animation? Following in the footsteps of The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, and Coraline, ParaNorman arrives with another grim tale revolving around things that go bump in the night. Furthermore, it follows a trend of movies with stern anti-bullying messages wrapped around its innocuous plot details – indicating that it’s not just the living that feel put-upon or victimized.

Stop-motion animation is not a revolutionary method of filmmaking but with each film I see I find it harder and harder to spot the mechanics of it. By now the technology has become advanced and the technique well-honed so much so that you may be fooled into thinking you’re watching a hand-drawn or computer animated film. Directors Butler and Fell both have a history in this medium and blend their talents remarkably well to create a world that is both familiar and new to our eyes.

Centering on Blithe Hollow, a town that is best known for its persecution of witches (I loved their town motto “A great place to hang!”), ParaNorman follows our young misunderstood hero as he deals with a family that doesn’t get him, classmates that bully or ignore him, and his uncanny ability to see and talk to dead people. It’s a gift he doesn’t relish but still soldiers forth with – as we watch him walk to school saying good morning to various departed townies certain empathy is created for the boy with no real friends in the living world.

The details of the town and townspeople are pretty remarkable in that they eschew clean lines and pretty faces for large rumps and dirty dwellings. The whole town looks like it is smack dab in the middle of a garbage dump and it’s the clear highlighting of these conditions that make the film unique. Take Norman’s mother, for instance. A friendly presence, she was still created with no chin, googly eyes, and a large pouch of fat above her abdomen. It’s a very middle-America view of the society and I thought it was a brave choice to create such ‘broke the mold’ characters in this type of film.

If you’ve seen The Frighteners, think of ParaNorman as that movie skewed for a younger crowd. While its material is appropriately creepy for adult moviegoers, parents should beware its light PG rating as it really is quite scary and some material may be objectionable for children too young to be in on the joke. It’s a fairly bleak film and even getting to the resolution requires going through some tough scenes about loss that could make the car-ride home a bit awkward.

With that said, I still found the film terrifically entertaining. I’m very much a kid that was into horror and scary things when I was young so this would have been a movie right up my alley when I was twelve or thirteen in much the same way The Monster Squad was. The humor hit the right chord, though I do think that some of the jokes may have aimed too high for the target age bracket. Still, if you are a big kid like me or have mature children that don’t run for cover when a scary movie comes on – take them to this and they’ll thank you for it.

The film is being released in 3D and 2D so you have your choice of formats. I saw the 3D version and felt it brought me into the world of Blithe Hollow much more than the 2D could have. It’s worth the uptick in price if you go that route and its evident consideration was given to the 3D when it was being filmed. The opening and closing credits are appropriately schlocky with some clever nods to kitschy zombie films from yesteryear.

The voice talent here is solid and unobtrusive. You’ll be able to pick out voices like Goodman and Stritch but others may require a little listening with your eyes closed. Don’t keep them closed too long, though, because you’ll miss some brilliant animation and a welcome departure to the usual Misunderstood Kid plot.

The film may overreach a tad as it nears it conclusion. A few late in the plot twists seem to be revealed only to say “We did it first” and I think there are maybe 3-4 characters that could have been excised to keep the film with a good pace. Also, why this isn’t being released in late September is a mystery to me. It’s the perfect film to take in on a fall day as the leaves are falling from the tree s and the days of summer are becoming a distant memory.